What the Etchings Make
by ShadowedSoulSpirit
Summary: Everything is the same. Yuri would go on to his free skate alone at the Rostelecom Cup. Only this time, Viktor never makes it to Japan, and Yuri is completely aware of it before he even enters the rink. Warnings Inside.


**What the Etchings Make**

* * *

 **A Yuri on Ice! Oneshot.**

 **Summary: Everything is the same. Yuri would go on to his free skate alone at the Rostelecom Cup. Only this time, Viktor never makes it to Japan, and Yuri is completely aware of it before he even enters the rink.**

 **Warning: Rated T for angst, death, and language.**

* * *

A theater of people toils restlessly. Cracking whips melt through their conversations, gnaw at it and toss it aside as useless awe. Counting, breathless counting chip through his breath, to eight and down again.

One.

He nails the jump and tosses his hands in the air, grasping for a hand he will never reach.

Two.

Slips into his next combination, staggers from an over rotation as if he is once again tossed from the boat and into the sea.

Three.

He finds himself watching the etchings on the ice more than the hive around him, wondering what he will spell out once he is done.

Four.

Perhaps it was _I love you_. Perhaps it was _I'm sorry_. Another over rotation. The cold hardly penetrates his skin deep enough.

Five.

Who is watching him now, he wonders, as he twists into the spread eagle with ease.

Not the person he so desperately wants.

Six.

Thinking through the story in his head, the story of Yuri on Ice, seems to encapsulate his performance in an ice age. The judges shift a little when the boy who proclaimed love as his theme only seems to sputter bitterness on the ice. Yet another failed quad. He lingers longer on the floor this time before he pushes himself up.

Seven.

1627\. It is a number that would forever live in his heart as he skates to the middle of the rink; and finally, after toiling, battling, and losing, he surrenders halfway through his performance. The music dwindles on as his eyes slowly prod the crowd, unmoving even as his body instinctively wants to complete the next step sequence, the next jump, the next skate.

Eight.

Somewhere outside, a woman watches a bird flutter pitifully away; but with a clap, it is struck back to the ground with its ailment, dead.

Dead. Just like Yuri Katsuki.

Seven.

A boy rises up from his chair, stomping over the barrier. His hands tremble from rage, but he doesn't waver as he forces the barrier open and skates over to the performer, even as the music comes to a bitter end.

Six.

"Why did you stop?" Yuri Plisetsky demands, grabbing the Japanese Yuri by one shoulder, "Why did you stop it? Huh?"

Five.

A child cries within the audience. For a moment, Yuri cannot meet his eyes; but he is already fished and reeled in when the Russian step foot on the ice.

Four.

1627\. Numbers, could he say the numbers?

Three.

His answer is on his lips. But it would be just like him to fail it too, fail it like any other quad or Salchow or combination he tried. Nothing would stick, no matter how hard he wanted it to.

Two.

"I stopped…" Yurio would not let him go until he squeezes the answer out. Jean-Jacques impatiently paces on the sideline. His turn would be delayed. A judge gets to her feet, setting her pencil down. Yuri met her eyes secondly before his eyes rebound back to his younger friend. He decides he will raise his voice, just this once before he'd let it die again.

One.

"I stopped because this is my story," He explains, loud enough that the audience didn't have to lean forward, "And my story is intertwined with Viktor's. Since his is over, I stopped mine."

A grapple. Yuri staggers when Yurio grabs the part of his costume closest to his throat. "What the hell are you talking about?!" He demands, giving him a shake, "Just because Viktor went back to Japan doesn't mean you should ruin the entire program he created for you!"

Yuri shakes his head. "I didn't ruin it. I performed it just like he wanted…"

"That doesn't answer my question! What the hell are you talking about?!"

The fuss makes some security skirt around the barriers, calling both Yuri's names in natural languages. The announcer asks solemnly for them to leave the rink, to which neither complied. Giving the younger skate's wrist a squeeze, Yuri detaches his arm from his costume.

The costume he would never wear again.

"I got a call from my mom, about Makkachin..." the Japanese skater couldn't help but naturally start skating, a slow waltz around the rink as he tries to smash together the words that bobble in his head. What to say, what combination to make? "I told him to go home, to be with Makkachin. He loves his dog so much; it was the right thing to do."

He knows what he is spelling out this time with his skates. _It's all my fault._

"It was a direct flight to Japan. Flight 1627." Saying it makes it real, too bitterly real.

His voice croaks in his throat. His mouth opens but only gulps air, opens and shuts with no accord on whether to scream, cry, or talk. He no longer sees the rink in his vision, just Viktor, only Viktor, alone on his own battlefield of ice. When Yuri twists to start in his direction, a thunderous sound shakes through his body, and the ice cracks around his coach, to plunge him deep into some place the skater couldn't follow.

He coughs through his bitter words, wishing he could throw them up but knows the taste will never leave his mouth. "I know for certain Viktor was on that flight. No one else but me would know."

Soft gasps bubble through the crowd. The crying child is silent. The woman shields her eyes from the dead bird outside.

"And the news said... before the skate… that Flight 1627 went down..." He is breaking, coming apart at the seams. The emotions he had murdered before his performance are welling up inside of him with vengeance, causing him to stagger on such a simple task as skating forward. It is pain, nothing but pain, deep-seeded pain that burns and scorches all it touches, all that is left of Yuri's shrunken heart.

Down. All. Flight 1627. Viktor. Viktor's smile, his last hug. _"Are you sure Yuri?"_ No, he isn't sure, is never sure. It is all coming so fast, so suddenly, that Yuri's pitiful yelp has his skate landing him on his knees. _"Go Viktor. You should be there."_ But he isn't there. Failed. All. Killed on impact. Viktor.

Yurio stared at him with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Eight.

"I sent him on that plane... so he wouldn't regret it…" His hair is falling in his eyes. His knees feel like they are sinking through the ice, and he wishes they were. He wishes he could go to where it would take him. "So I sent him off to die…"

Seven.

Perhaps it was merely an accident, as the media claimed. _"Engine failure mid-flight"_. But that doesn't diminish the fact that Yuri swore that he would steal Viktor Nikiforov from the world, and he did just that. One plane crash and he did exactly as he said he would.

Six.

Yurio falls less gracefully, his emotions a little more rash and untamed. He manages to scoop up words better than Yuri, though. "You.. You're a liar! You're a fucking liar Yuri Katsuki!"

There are loud cries. Even the judges sink in their chairs with tears in their eyes. Unfortunately, out of the many things Yuri was horrible at doing, the worst yet is lying.

Five.

Finally, it is enough. The announcer blows his nose and throws away his iternary, pulling the microphone close to his lips as he turned the system on.

"Today… as clarified by the news outlet I'm staring at at this very moment… beloved Russian skater and Grand Prix medalist Viktor Nikiforov and over two hundred others have been reported dead due to an engine stall over the Sea of Japan…"

Real. All too real.

Four.

In a distant rink, a phone clatters to the ice, a crack forming over the wallpaper screen of Yuri, Viktor, and Thailand's beloved hope. At another, a skate is thrown through a glass barrier, followed by blood-stained hands that have to be pried away by Swiss security. A skype call ends in messy tears as a Chinese skater sinks to his bed and the other, an American, to his couch.

Numbness. It is all the skates could etch within the ice.

Three.

An imagine comes to mind, one fragmented but still conceivable, of a young man and long hair streaking across the rink with a grin. Another, the same man but shorter hair, hand extended to him. Pictures flicker. Eating katsudon. Sleeping in a pile. Yuri's first and last kiss upon an icecap he never would return to.

Two.

He is not wrong when he said it before, thinking of it as he crawls to his feet and exits the rink entirely. He could not perform his routine when the intricate part of the story is not there any longer. He unties his skates and kicks them to a corner.

Viktor's story is over. The beautiful, magical story that Yuri had wished to be a part of one day with a ring to tie them together. But he has ruined that; and as a fitting end, he would destroy his story too.

His Eros costume would go in his closet. His free skate music would be deleted. There would be no Grand Prix medal.

One.

Without Viktor, Yuri _could no longer be_ on ice.

* * *

 **There is a sequel to this piece just for you guys titled Lost Boys! You can find it by clicking the link to my profile or by typing in this link immediately after fanfic website:**

 **s/12318246/1/Lost-Boys**

 **Thanks again for your support! I hope you guys have a good day.**

 **-Soul Spirit-**


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